Mailbag #154

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Magicians hold things differently from regular people.

Being a magician, I get magic on my feed every now and then. […]

I often recognise that I am watching a magician before reading the title of the reel, before they have said anything about magic, and before seeing anything on the screen (like a pack of cards) that specifically relates to magic.

[M]y useless ability derives from the fact that magicians hold things funny.

I mean, take the guy above.[…] Who else holds an object at their fingertips away from their body, shows the other hand empty, and stares at it like it's a prop from an Indiana Jones movie?

Incidentally, this guy performs the sleight well - I'm not knocking him.

And I can see the advantages of handling objects this way for non-social performances. You want your movements to be slow and deliberate. Choreographed, like a dance. And people need to see the thing you're holding, so it makes sense to hold it at the edges - that way, they can see more of it.

But, for casual performances, does this way of holding or handling or treating objects -- we could call it 'object fascination' or 'performative handling' so we have a term to refer to -- detract from the overall effect?

I think Dani DaOrtiz senses this and goes to the other extreme, chucking cards about like he couldn't give a f***, which works for him very well. I tried this once in a card trick and my wife looked at me like I had lost the plot. It didn't seem natural to her.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts - how does the attitude and manner with which we interact with objects affect the effect, and what should we think about (or not) when handling objects in our casual magic performances?—JB

Yes, I’ve been writing for over a decade about how the amateur should do what they can to eliminate “performative” elements in their magic: obvious scripting, planned jokes, tricks that have been “routined” together, objects that are transparently magic props, etc.

But it’s also in the way we handle objects.

I made that point early on in this post about my favorite coin vanish.

This can be hard to manage, because a lot of methods require you to handle an object in an odd or unnatural way. They only work that way.

That means the library of sleights available to someone chasing a casual aesthetic is smaller than you might like.

That’s okay. There are still plenty of techniques that fit into a more natural style. All you’re giving up are methods that seem fishy in the first place.

I stick to two kinds of handling: A) what looks normal, or B) what looks extra fair.

I might hold a coin on my flat hand (normal). Or I might hold it at my fingertips (in a way that seems explicitly fair). But I wouldn’t hold it in a contorted position just for the sake of doing a sleight.

That’s my only real test: does it look normal—or, if not, does it look like I’m going out of my way to be fair?

And then it’s just a matter of being willing to eliminate anything that doesn’t live up to that standard.

I recently purchased Outsmarted by Green Lemon, which includes the ESP Finger set (also available separately as Finger Match).

Over the weekend, I performed the classic Jazz Mentalism by David Humphrey as the first phase — presented as if the spectator, using intuition, was able to mirror the cards I laid down. I then followed it with Echo Sync, as a second phase without any cards, to demonstrate that no trick deck or sleight was involved.

 This combination worked beautifully — Echo Sync seemed to eliminate the last remaining doubts the audience had after the first, more “prop-based” phase.

I’m now also thinking about possible variations where, perhaps with a bit of humor, I could integrate a phase that includes the presentation of the Twickle Hands.

Just wanted to share this with you, as I found the flow between these routines very effective and the reactions fantastic.—MH

I think that’s a good combination of ideas.

I would likely do them on different occasions. Do the card version one night, and then the video version some other time because you want to try it again but you “don’t have your cards on you.”

You could then do a third beat at a later date with a Twickle hand and a “Here’s how I really do it” premise. Where the little guy clues you into which number they’re thinking of.

This is a nice stack of effects:

  1. A strong card-based version. It’s fooling, but still has the feeling of a more traditional trick.

  2. A non-card version that makes it feel more real and lends credence to the card version.

  3. A comedic brush-off that’s still fooling.

This is a way of keeping people off balance in regard to what to expect from your magic, while still adding continuity to the stuff you do and a feeling like these things are taking place in the same weird universe.

I bought some NOC cards because I wanted the black backs for Adam Elbaum’s Awe Struck but it made me laugh when I found they're marked with a totally bonkers system that's fully disclosed on the web!

If you count the number of sharp corners on the outer border you get the suit. One sharp is spades, two sharps is hearts, three sharps is clubs, four is diamonds, and no sharps mean’s it’s a joker. To get the card value first orientate the card by making the inner top left corner sharp. Then look at the inner area. Starting at the top left, work anticlockwise noting the sharp corners. The first has a value of one, the second two, the third four and the fourth the value of eight. Add everything together and you get the value of the card… Zzz…

Even a lightning-fast teenager with eyes of a hawk, in a brightly lit room, is going to struggle to do this without telegraphing. I need to put on my reading glasses (always a bit of a tell) turn up the lighting some more and suggest everyone makes a cup of coffee… If I really want to know the name of the card, I’ve found there are some really nice clear markings on the card’s front.

However, here is the thing. As the House of Playing Cards is dumb enough to have disclosed their marking system, they can’t object if a presentation discloses it. Non magicians will find it curious and it’s a cute “garden path” to lead them down. I don’t think the magic world is being deprived of a useful tool as no sane magician would use this system!—DM

You’re correct in assuming no performer has ever actually used this system in performance. Unfortunately, it’s not completely value-less, as the round/sharp corner concept is usable for marked ESP cards. And therefore, not something I’d want to expose to people.

If you want a truly bad marked deck—one you can expose—to convince people that marking systems are absurdly complex (without burning anything useful), check out this post.

Dustings #134

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In my ongoing attempt to find the perfect product to add some tackiness to my hands when performing sleight-of-hand magic, I gave this product a shot.

And it actually does a really good job of giving your hands that little extra grip you need for sleights, without being greasy or wet in any way. So I recommend it…

… just so long as your performance character is, like, a fun magical corpse.

Silly me for thinking something called Chalkless might not make it look like your hands were covered in chalk.

Supporter Zachary A. sent along his simple but intriguing display for the Princesses of Darkness effect.

This sort of thing works beautifully as a way to hook visitors to your home and get them to ask about the item on display, leading into any effect you have with a haunted or demonic premise.

Magic tricks are always stronger when the other person initiates the moment. And a hook like this makes it almost automatic.

You don’t even necessarily have to perform the trick on display. You can put it off, to build tension. Or say, “Oh, that? I like to collect items with strange histories. I don’t mess with that one much. But I did just get something in the mail you might find interesting...”

This Week in Unfortunate Truncating

Oooookay. Uhm, look, I guess there are some fringe elements of society that are okay with this sort of thing, but I think even they wouldn’t suggest putting this information in your marketing emails.

This one references Josh Jay’s customization of his own Real Doll where he “moved the face” completely off and installed a second asshole in the head. “I’m tryin’ to nut here, not gaze in some bitch’s eyes. Sheeeeeit,” he told me.

Mailbag: Pre-Tricks

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Something interesting happened today, something I honestly thought wouldn’t happen to me anymore after all these years reading your blog and following your style of magic — which has basically shaped mine ever since.

I went to the barbershop I usually go to once or twice a month. The barbers always ask me to show them something, and even after years, they still react really well. But today, while I was performing for one of them, he got genuinely amazed. Then a customer getting his haircut started paying attention and asked what had just happened. When I tried to explain it briefly, he immediately said, “Oh, do it on me.”
From his tone, I could tell it wasn’t a good idea — and that leads to my first question:

When you know someone won’t be a good spectator and you don’t want to perform for them, how do you say no without sounding arrogant?

I ended up doing WikiTest anyway, and he was like, “Ah, you must’ve connected it to your phone.” So I said, “Even if that were true, you only thought of the word, right?”
Then he had that look of “I was fooled, but I don’t want to admit it.”

It’s weird because this kind of reaction hasn’t happened to me in years — not since I started reading your blog. Of course, it was a specific situation — a stranger. But it made me think: just like in hypnosis, where you have the pre-talk — where you explain what’s going to happen, clear up myths and fears, build rapport, and prepare the subject to accept suggestions — couldn’t we have something similar in magic too?

Like, disarming the person first. Something like:
“I’ll show you something, but honestly, it probably won’t work — it only works every now and then.”
Or:
“I want to show you something, but I want you to know it’s not me versus you — it’s not a game where someone has to win.” —DM

There are a couple of different parts to your question.

On the subject of “pre-talk,” I don’t think it’s that useful in magic—at least not in the same way. Hypnosis pretty much requires it because if people aren’t primed to go along with the process, you’ll have no success. Many people assume hypnosis is some kind of spell or trance that they’re “put under.” These people have to be educated that, no, it’s a process that they have to take part in and go along with, or else it doesn’t work.

Magic is a different animal.

If you have a potential spectator who you think might be an asshole and you say to him, “It’s not me versus you—it’s not a game where someone has to win,”—and he truly is an asshole—then that’s going to do you no good. He won’t think, He’s right… magic should be a collaborative, joyful experience! He’ll just double down, trying even harder to fight you because he smells weakness.

Instead of “pre-talk,” think “pre-trick—a quick, low-stakes effect that qualifies them and suggests a performer/audience dynamic that isn’t, “I’m going to fool you. Try to stop me from fooling you.”

So if I was in your situation, here’s what I would do:

“Yeah, sure. We can try something. I don’t know you, so there’s a good chance it won’t work, but let’s give it a shot.” [Write down something.] “Okay, I wrote down a number. It’s a two-digit number, less than 50. I’m going to try and send that to you and see if you can pick up on it.”

I write down 37.

Yes, the 37 force. I wouldn’t even bother with the “two odd digits, different from each other” part because I don’t care if it works.

You see where I’m going with this. It’s a quick, simple trick that’s presented as Spectator-as-Mindreader. There’s a decent chance of it hitting, but that’s not really what I care about. What I’m trying to do is threefold:

First, I want to move what I do outside the usual “magic trick” frame. There’s no process, no sleight to spot, no prop to suspect. From their perspective, the only way it works is dumb luck—or something more mysterious. And that’s the point: simply presenting it as something that could genuinely work shifts their thinking beyond the idea that there must be a trick for them to uncover.

Second, because it’s a Spectator-as-Mindreader effect, it suggests that the goal is something cooperative, not a battle of wits.

Third, and most importantly, I get to see their reaction to the experience. Are they interested in it and having fun? Or are they on guard and making a competition of it? If so, I know they’re not going to be fun to play with, and I can bail without a second thought.

Let’s look at the possible outcomes:

If he doesn’t say 37 and it seems like he’s a tool

“That’s okay. It’s not the sort of thing that most people can just pick up on with a stranger. But I thought it was worth a shot because sometimes, even with strangers, you’re on the same wavelength almost immediately.”

Notice, I’m framing this as his failure: “You weren’t able to do it. But that’s okay.”

Now I can shut it down gracefully—we clearly don’t have the kind of connection we’d need to do anything interesting.

If he doesn’t say 37, but I’m getting a good vibe from him

“That’s okay. It’s not the sort of thing that most people can just pick up on with a stranger. You might be better with words. Here, let’s try this….” And I can transition into a different effect.

If he says 37 and he seems cool

I can say,

“That’s incredible. Have you had these types of insights before? Or did it just feel like guessing, or what?”

Now I’m building him up a little. And again, I can delve into a more substantial trick with him. (Or, if he’s truly blown away, just end it at this point.)

If he says 37 and he seems like a douchebag

“That’s incredible. Have you had these types of insights before? Or did it just feel like guessing, or what?”

Let him respond a little…

“Actually, I’m just messing with you, man. Everyone says 37. Well, not everyone, of course. But certain types of people are very predictable in that way. I generally don’t have much luck connecting with that kind of thought process.”

This would be a very strange situation for them. You wrote down the number they named. It should be a minor miracle. So they get the experience of a successful trick—exactly what they asked for—but then you get to frame it as evidence of a type of thinking that you probably wouldn’t be able to connect with.

It’s kind of mean on your part, but as I said, I would only go this route if I was getting true douchebag vibes from the other person.

Again, the goal is not to get a hit here. Don’t worry about that. You’re just doing what the “pre-talk” does in hypnosis: establishing a baseline and qualifying the person so you can decide if you want to go further with him.

Later this month, I’ll share a variation on this “pre-trick” idea that I’ve been using for a while—though I didn’t think of it in those terms. It’s another quick number guess, but this one actually has a method behind it, so you can control the outcome.

A True Story That Really Happened

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I can’t believe we’re over ten years into this site and I’m just now telling this story.

I guess… well… I guess I was a little embarrassed to tell you all. It doesn’t reflect well on me. I was young and dumb (and yes, full of cum, as they say).

I was in my car, in the parking lot of a Papa John’s, when the cops rolled up and took me in. I was arrested on two counts: prostitution and solicitation of prostitution. (I was paying myself to masturbate.)

So they throw me in jail and say I’ll be there all weekend before seeing a judge. What’s worse, Monday was Labor Day, and Tuesday the judge had to get her dog groomed, so I wasn’t getting out until Wednesday.

The holding cell got crowded, so they decided to send me to state prison for a few days.

Now look… prison isn’t like the movies. The black guys are here. The white guys are there. There are sexual assaults in the showers. Prison riots. A wise old lifer who dispenses cryptic advice and mentors the newbies. An evil warden. A heartwarming game of football where a ragtag bunch of inmates beat the guards.

So yeah, you can tell from the details in my story that I really, truly know what prison is like, from first-hand experience.

Now, I knew I had to do something to make an impression on these prisoners, or risk them breaking my spirit and my anal hymen.

So I spot this group of black guys playing Spades, and I walk up to them and say, “Give me that deck.”

They say, “Uhm… we’re in the middle of a game.”

So I sit quietly for fifty minutes until the game ends. Then I say, “Give me that deck!”

I proceed to entertain them with card tricks for thirty-nine hours straight (one pee break) without repeating a single trick. To be fair, one of them was an eight-thousand-phase Ambitious Card.

When I finally finish, everyone claps and says, “Hooray for Andy!” They declare me an honorary “soul brother.” One guy walks up with a tear in his eye and says, “Your tricks taught me a little about magic… and a lot about life.” Then he hugs me.

They carry me on their shoulders into court Wednesday morning, and the judge says, “You must be the handsome boy-magician everyone’s buzzing about.”

“No,” I say. “You are.”

Then I set off a smoke bomb, and when the air clears, I’m in the judge’s robe up on the bench—and the judge is in handcuffs, sitting where I’d been moments earlier.

“The case against you is dismissed!” I shout, banging the gavel. Then I switch back with the judge, and after several hours of consulting law books, it’s determined they have to let me go because there’s nothing in the law that says it’s illegal to corporally switch with the judge and dismiss the charges against yourself.

Yeah, I guess it’s a pretty crazy story. But you can see why I was embarrassed to tell it—it makes me look so bad… winning over the entire prison population with my incredible skills and charm, etc., etc.

Some might say I’ve stolen David Blaine’s origin story.

But when it was pointed out to Oz Pearlman that he stole David’s story, he said, “Well, it happened to me too!” Which, honestly, makes it more believable that it also happened to me. A lot of things happen once. A lot of things happen a lot of times. But it’s really rare for something to happen exactly twice.

In fact, I’m guessing most magicians have their own version of that story: the weekend jail stint, the deck of cards, the black guys in the corner, the hearts won through sleight of hand.

Go check Thurston’s diaries; I’m pretty sure it’s in there too. (Though, fair warning, the words he used for “the group of black guys” probably haven’t aged great.)

A Private Note for Oz Pearlman

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Guys, this is a private note for Oz Pearlman. If you’re not him, do the polite thing and bail now.

Hey Oz. I don’t have your email—and I’m not on Facebook—so this is the only way to get this to you. I was listening to your Joe Rogan appearance and, around the 45-minute mark, you launch into the story about going to jail and saving your ass (maybe literally) by doing card tricks for the brothers for eight straight hours.

Here’s the thing: the story has a real “first draft energy”: wobbly timeline, fuzzy logistics, movie-logic jail dynamics. I’m going to help you tighten it for the next time you need a spicy anecdote to punch up your otherwise beige backstory. We’ll go through it beat by beat…

Oz: This is a good story for my book that I’m writing right now. So—I end up in jail for a weekend. It’s a long story. I was in jail one weekend—stupid weekend—but I walk in there by myself. I should have been out that day, but I got stuck all weekend.

And I’m watching these guys playing cards, and it’s like I had trained my whole life for this moment. I walk up—record scratch—to like forty dudes and go, “Can I see those cards?” Everyone’s looking at me like, “What’s this guy about to do?”

And I just did card tricks for the next eight hours. When I went to take a shower, I’m thinking of the show Oz, like, Oh my god, right now I need protection. I went to shower—Mecosta County Jail in Michigan—and literally had people being like, “Go take a shower, we got you, bro.”

Joe: What did you go to jail for?

Oz: So stupid. This almost derailed my whole career. Drunken idiots. I go up to visit a buddy in college, and we steal from a Papa John’s. God, don’t ask me why. A broken phone at a college Papa John’s—just being idiots.

I paid for the pizza, but there was a broken phone on the counter, and, you know, this is me, sleight-of-hand style. I’m like, I’m just stealing this thing. Gone. It’s in my jacket.

To be clear: in your book, you explain that it was a landline phone you stole. You write:

“At Papa John’s, they had a bank of about twenty phones on the counter; this was before it was common to have one phone with dozens of lines. So there were these red phones that the employees were constantly answering, thanks to their brisk delivery business.”

“Before it was common to have one phone with dozens of lines.” Huh? Multi-line business phones have been around since the Nixon era. In the early 2000s, they were practically antiques. The story’s already collapsing and we’re only two sentences in.

Papa John’s didn’t have a “bank of twenty phones” on the counter. They don’t have one now, and they didn’t then. The Jerry Lewis Telethon didn’t have twenty phones on the counter.

Also, I’m not sure picking up a phone and jamming it in your jacket qualifies as “sleight of hand.” I get that you want to make yourself sound like the world’s smoothest magic thief, but what exactly are you implying here? Did you French drop the Papa John’s phone? Spider vanish it? Sleight of hand is about manual deception when people are paying attention to you. Quietly pocketing a broken phone off a Papa John’s countertop when no one is looking means you’ve mastered the ancient art of petty larceny, not prestidigitation.

Oz: Then I tell my buddies, “You guys gotta get something too.” So they go in the bathroom—which doubles as the employee locker room—and they take three dirty shirts. Dirty shirts from a laundry bin.

Lol, Oz, you adorable goofball.

Look, I get it: your story has to get you to jail, but you don’t want to invent something where you’re like, “My friends and I raped a drifter and set him on fire.” So you’re trying to pick a story that makes you look not too bad. But… um… I’m guessing you never worked in fast food?

The bathroom doesn’t double as the employee locker room—that would be a health-code violation (several, actually).

And Papa John’s doesn’t launder employee’s shirts for them, you bozo. You go home and wash the shirt yourself. Or do what I’m guessing most Papa John’s employees do: wash it once a week once it’s fully saturated with garlic butter.

Oz: We bring them back to my buddy’s house like idiots. We wear them at the party. I barely remember this—I was blackout drunk—like, “Papa John’s! Who wants a pizza? Who wants a pizza?”

I end up going to sleep on his futon around 2 a.m. At 4 a.m., someone comes in and says, “Yo, the cops are here.” I’m like, “Dude, it’s not my house. What do you want from me?”

I find it a little unbelievable you were invited to a party, but let’s pretend, for the sake of narrative flow, that you were.

As you know—because you possess super-human mentalism powers!—people tend to slip on the tiny details when they’re making things up. Saying you were “blackout drunk” and still remember crawling onto a futon at precisely 2 a.m.? That’s one of those continuity errors that gives the whole game away. You’ll want to pick a lane here between omniscient narrator or sloppy drunk.

Joe: Did you guys post the videos?

Oz: No, this is pre-social-media, man. No, no. Somebody ratted us out. Somebody’s roommate—I found this out way later—called and said, “Yo, bro, there’s a bunch of dudes here with a broken phone from Papa John’s.”

I didn’t know any of this, but someone comes in like, “Yo, the cops are here.” I say, “They’re here for you.” They go, “They’re here for you.” I’m like, “Here for me? What do you mean, they’re here for me? I don’t live here.”

The cops come in the room, and I’m wearing aggressively small underwear—like tighty-whities. This couldn’t have been more of a bad perp walk. They go, “You’re under arrest.” I’m like, “For what?” They go, “For stealing from Papa John’s.”

Mmm-hmm… let’s think about this for a moment. First, you’re wearing the fucking dirty shirt to bed, you disgusting slob? 🤮

And let me get this straight—you’re saying a third party, not even a complaining witness, called the cops on you? “There’s some guys here with a broken phone from Papa John’s”? To what end? Did people find you that dislikable that they’d really call the cops in the middle of the night on you for this?

And then what did the cops do? Wake up the manager of Papa John’s in the middle of the night to see if he wanted to press charges?

This is a believable story to you?

Joe: What night was this?

Oz: Friday night.

So, let’s review: it’s Friday night—the busiest shift of the week—and the local cops, instead of dealing with drunk drivers and bar fights, leap into action over a missing broken phone from Papa John’s. At four in the morning.

Sure. Forget the assaults, the DUIs, the domestic calls—we have rape kits piling up for years—but yes, let’s mobilize the entire department because we have a hot lead on a busted landline.

Honestly, removing a broken phone from a Papa John’s isn’t even a crime, it’s a service. They should’ve thanked you. “Hey, appreciate you getting that eyesore out of here, kind citizen.”

Joe: How old were you?

Oz: I was twenty years old and just about to get an internship at Merrill Lynch. While this story’s hilarious now—it’s a funny chapter in my book—it was like, God help me, did I avoid everything.

When I went to jail—yo, scariest, one of the scariest days of my life.

Joe: How’d you get out of everything?

Oz: I had a clean record. I was a pretty upstanding citizen. And, not to get in the weeds, but there’s something called the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act—I wonder if they still have it—where it was expunged from my record. Didn’t have to report it to the Wall Street firm.

How convenient—your imaginary arrest just happened to be wiped clean by the state!

Here’s the issue: the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act isn’t an instant delete button. When granted, you’re placed on a kind of probationary status. There’s no conviction, but the record isn’t immediately erased. Only after successful completion (which can take years) does it get fully expunged.

So the arrest still would have been on your record for that upcoming internship.

Also, I’ve read that part of the book. If anyone told you it was a “funny” chapter, they were fucking with you.

Oz: Then they separated us when we went to general population. And it’s not like the movies—you know, it was wild. When I went in there, I just knew, This is my cheat code. Like everything in life had prepared me for this moment.

The jail was very segregated—the white dudes are here, the Black dudes are here—and I didn’t know what to do. I’m five-foot-nothing, a buck-forty dripping wet. How do I make friends right now?

You’re not going to be put into gen pop while you’re on a weekend hold for stealing a broken phone. I mean, none of this story is true, but even if it were true up to this point, that’s not how it works.

You don’t get the Shawshank experience for petty theft. You’d be in a holding cell, waiting for Monday morning paperwork, not navigating a racially divided prison yard like it’s American History X.

It’s funny that you say, “It’s not like the movies,” and then describe it exactly like the movies, because that’s the only frame of reference you’ve got.

Oz: The jail was very segregated—the white dudes are here, the Black dudes are here—and I didn’t know what to do. I’m five-foot-nothing, a buck-forty dripping wet. How do I make friends right now?

Then I see the Black guys playing spades, and I just walk up. You gotta make your move. I’m like, “Let me see those cards.” And that was it—I didn’t stop for hours, didn’t repeat a trick. I know tricks encyclopedically. I just went all day.

“The jail was ‘very segregated,’ so I went up to the black guys to make friends.” I’m not quite sure I understand the logic there. You know you’re not black, yes?

But honestly, now that I look back on it, I’ve been a bit too critical. This is such a great story. Getting arrested on some trumped-up charges and being stuck in jail over the weekend until you could get things taken care of. So you see all the black guys playing Spades, you go up to them, entertain them all, and win everyone over with card tricks.

Do you know what this reminds me of? That story in Blaine’s Mysterious Stranger. The one where he gets arrested on some trumped-up charges, stuck in jail over the weekend until he can get things sorted out. So he sees all the black guys playing Spades, goes up to them, entertains them all, and wins everyone over with card tricks.

Now, I did notice in the book re-telling of this story you’ve changed some details to avoid some of the obvious inconsistencies and made-up stuff from your appearance on Joe Rogan. But now I think it’s even worse because now you have both versions floating around—different timelines, different “facts”—so it seems even more fake.

Of course—who cares, right? Magicians have been fabricating colorful backstories for centuries. It’s part of the tradition. But remember, you’re trying to convince people you’re a master of the mind, a human lie detector who can pick up on the tiniest details—read micro-expressions, catch every twitch, every hidden tell…and then you spin this half-baked, instantly debunkable story?

You built your brand on noticing the details, and you missed all of them here. It doesn’t just weaken the story, it guts your persona.

And it looks extra corny because it’s a clearly fake story that you thought made you look cool. “I crossed the color barrier and charmed the homies with my sleight of hand!” When you tell the story in your book, you even have the judge saying something like, “Are you the magician everyone’s talking about?!” lol. It’s essentially autoerotic fan fiction for how much you’re blowing yourself here.

As a professional writer (something you might consider employing), here’s the new story I suggest for you going forward:

Okay, actually the story I told on JRE and in my book was fake. I lifted parts of a Blaine story and sprinkled in some other bullshit to sound cool because, truthfully, I didn’t have any good anecdotes for my book.

Well… there is one story, but I was embarrassed to share it. My friends and I had just left Papa John’s when we saw a drifter we decided to rape and set on fire. I went to jail for it, but the black guys said I was their hero for doing card tricks. They also protected me in the shower. And then I used my incredible knowledge of body language to get the judge to dismiss the case and erase all evidence that anything ever happened.

Mailbag #153

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I bought Eject by Trick Trick Boom and it’s a great bit of kit, but do you think there’s any way to make it feel like something other than I bought a little machine that shoots out a Sharpie?

So far it definitely gets a little shock and a laugh, but everyone seems to know what’s going on. Thoughts? —IC

Thoughts? I guess… what did you expect, exactly? When a Sharpie comes shooting out from an area people aren’t allowed to look into, yes, they’re going to assume there’s something in there that shot the Sharpie out. That’s what you would presume, correct? You should have known this when you bought it.

Could you incorporate it into something that was truly fooling? Yes, probably. You could do the teleportation bit, but have the Sharpie signed, then do some sort of sleeving switch and drop a different Sharpie in the first bag. Then catch the marker that shoots out of bag number two, and do some other switch again with their original Sharpie coming back into play so they can confirm their signature. It’s possible if you’re great with flipstick/sleeving-type stuff with markers it could look really great. But I don’t know that “teleporting Sharpie” is a premise that’s worth all that much effort.

If I owned this thing, I’d be looking for the most fun way to use it, not the most mystifying. I just don’t think it’s that well-suited for that sort of thing.

Unless maybe you used it as a non-visual moment. For example, you have someone examine a room in their house and lock the door to that room. You make a Sharpie vanish in another part of the house, and when they go back into that room, the Sharpie is sitting on the floor (because you have the gizmo hidden somewhere inconspicuous where it can shoot the marker into the middle of the floor or whatever)

I recently got a marked stripper deck and found it incredibly useful—but not in the traditional way. Stripper decks are typically considered beginner gimmicks, and there's not much information online beyond basic beginner tricks.

I'm not using it as the main method for tricks, nor am I pulling cards from the deck (the typical tell). Instead, I use it as a tool to create a "crimped" card on the spot by simply reversing a card in the deck. This lets me cut directly to the key card.

Another use: marking the stack portion I need to keep separated. For example, in Shuffle Bored, I reverse the last card of the stack so I can naturally cut to exactly the portion I need during performance.

I've found the combination of marked deck and stripper deck to be an incredibly versatile tool. It allows me to get into the right setup for normal tricks (not typical stripper deck effects) much more easily and naturally. For some tricks, it even allows the spectator to freely shuffle the deck.

So I wonder—why is there so little discussion of stripper decks? Why are they mainly considered magic-kit gimmicks for beginners?

The only theoretical concern is examinability. But I don't think laypeople will notice it, especially if you're not pulling cards from the deck. My sample size is small, though. Do you have any insights, ideas, or data about stripper decks being identified by laypeople? Or why magicians use them so rarely as a tool? I couldn't find a single mention on your website either.—TH

I can only speak for myself, but perhaps this holds true for other magicians as well.

For me, the stripper deck was one of the first magic gimmicks I ever owned. It was something that was sold in normal toy stores.

Now, when I was eight or ten or whatever, I found it to be awkward, difficult, and inconsistent. That could be because the decks weren’t made well, or it could just be because I was a little kid and didn’t have the dexterity to use the deck well.

Either way, that left me with the impression that stripper decks were awkward, difficult, and inconsistent, so I never really bothered with them again in the decades to come.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true for others.

Maybe I’ll make it a little project to revisit the gimmick as an adult. If someone can really sell me on a use case for it (other than stripping out the cards for OOTW), I may give it another shot.

just stumbled over this article:
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/mathematicians-just-found-a-hidden-reset-button-that-can-undo-any-rotation/

At reddit there was an ELI5, that explained it enough for me to think there could be a trick in it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1ob8dvx/comment/nkf6qg2/

Maybe you could "demonstrate" this effect by doing a triumph or by shuffling cards back to new deck order or something. —SS

It’s interesting, but I’ll tell you my experience with this sort of thing.

If I have a trick with a backstory—something a weird guy showed me at a convention, or something strange that happened with a kid I knew growing up—I can hold people for ten or fifteen minutes just on the lead-up.

But if I’m showing people a demonstration of some strange concept, they don’t want a dissertation. They don’t want to struggle to understand the basic concept.

If the concept itself is confusing and they’re also puzzled by the method, that’s just confusion stacked on confusion.

If I’m introducing people to a new concept, I want to be able to do it in just a few sentences: “Apparently our eyes have a kind of built-in heat sensitivity. With enough training, you can learn to sense what’s on the other side of a wall—almost like seeing a faint heat map, or even a low-grade version of x-ray vision.”

Something like that.

But with the concept you mentioned, even the “Explain Like I’m 5” version runs several paragraphs. So it’s likely too confusing to be good for most spectators.

Until November...

/

Happy Halloween, boys and ghouls.!

[Oh shit, that’s such a hack pun. I need to come up with something original that showcases that signature Jerx wit.]

Happy Halloween, Ladies and Gentlemontresors! Ladies is pronounced with a long “I,” like dies—and Montresor recalls the narrator for Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado. A scary book. Or so I’m told. I’m not much of a reader.

[Haha. Good one, Andy. You nailed it.]

This is the final post for October.

Schedule:

November 2nd - The next Love Letters newsletter for supporters goes out.
November 3rd - Regular posting resumes.
Sometime in the next couple of weeks - The Aug-Oct Juxe Mix goes out.

Apparently this is a trick that has gone viral a few times in the past 10-15 years, but it’s my first time seeing it.

Story-deck tricks have officially only become worse since Sam the Bellhop (a bland shit-fest in the first place).

Not a laugh-line, clever bit of scripting, or even a corny pun in sight in this one.

Oz Pearlman will be peddling his dopey nonsene on 60 Minutes this week.

If you’ve stumbled over this site looking for how you too can “read body language” like Oz Pearlman… well… I’m not supposed to give away these body language secrets, so please don’t tell anyone. But let’s say you want to tell someone what movie they’re thinking of. Ask them to think of any movie. Then notice which direction they look towards. Then use this simple “body language” key to know what movie they’re thinking of.

1 is Star Wars
2 is Rush Hour
3 is On Golden Pond
4 is Rush Hour 2
5 is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
6 is Bloodsport
7 is Untitled Innarritu/Tom Cruise Movie [Releases Oct. 2nd, 2026]

And that’s how you use “body language” to know what someone is thinking. Stay tuned and I’ll teach you how to use “influence” to get someone to say the 5 of Hearts.

Have a good Halloween everyone. See you back here in November.

If you need a good horror movie recommendation, here are some of my favorites that I watched in the past year. As with most horror movies, the less you know going into them, the better.

Heretic
MadS
Strange Darling
Final Destination: Bloodlines (If you enjoy the franchise.)
Weapons
Sting (Nothing revolutionary here, but I thought it was fun. It’s not too dark, and there’s nothing crazy inappropriate in it. So it could be good for a young horror fan.)

Later dudes. I’ve got a halloween party to attend.